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Just pulled the trigger on a new Platinum set-up

I'm a noob RC guy that got turned on to the Slash a few weekends ago after playing with a friends Slash 4x4 in our driveway. Wow, that was a blast. We spent the afternoon constructing small jumps, sitting in lounge chairs with cocktails, trading out the controller. Everyone was giggling all afternoon. That was it. I was done for...

I'm a middle aged software guy, fascinated with gadgets and mechanical things that go fast like lightweight carbon road bikes and full suspension mountain bikes. So when I saw the telemetry options on the Ultimate there was no turning back. But I really wanted a clear body, a better charger and a few 3S batteries, so optioning out the Platinum seemed to be a better upgrade. But the Traxxas website made it tough to tell if the Platinum had the telemetry sensors included.

Just to be sure, I made a call to Traxxas customer support this morning - their CS agent confirmed that the Slash Platinum does indeed have the telemetry sensors installed and the only pieces missing from the Slash Ultimate package for the transmitter/receiver and battery/charger. So I took the plunge on buying a Platinum, with a TQi four channel transmitter with docking set-up, a DuraTrax Onyx 245 charger and two Traxxas 3S batteries, from Tower. A little pricier than going the simple Ultimate route, but I guess I just front-ended a few optioons I knew I'd want, and saved a little coin by not paying twice for something that would get retired soon after.

The set-up arrives this Friday. Looking forward to painting the body in white and blue to thematically match my Ibis Silk SL carbon road bike, and the early Porsche Carrera RS it was inspired by.

I've had the Platinum for about ten days now, and I'm finally feeling natural driving it at speed. I live next door to a great skate bowl/park and doing fast laps with jumps has really helped my skills improve. I invested in a second set of batteries, Traxxas 2S 5000 MAH, and that has helped a lot. The 3S batteries were a little crazy early on. On day 2, i ended up breaking a rear bulkhead in a spaz collision. Now after ten days of driving, I can throw the 3S in and have a little more fun.

I installed telemetry sensors, and am diggin the feedback on the iPhone. Also bought a spare for just about everything. Pretty well stocked and fully stoked.

Yesterday I was visiting a friend who lives on the Del Monte golf course in Monterey. He broke out his 1/8 nitro monster truck, and we had a blast on the fairway after the course had shut down for the afternoon. Jumping sand traps, drag racing up and down. Epic fun. Hit 56mph as indicated by the speed sensor, with box stock gearing.

Next tweak? I think my shocks are underdamped for the skatepark. I increased ride height/spring tension, but now it feels a little bouncy in the landings. Time to experiment with heavier shock oil, or maybe a set of Losi Ten-t shocks...

Welcome to the forum and the addiction! You are in a community full of extraordinary people who all share the love of the Traxxas Slash 4x4! I can see you have already been fully indoctrinated into the addiction. Remember if you have any questions ask, we are here to help! You are not too far from myself. I am in the East Bay. I have been your way several times.

I haven't driven this freshly painted body yet; waiting for my skills to improve. I have a Gordon #7 body stripped of sponsor decals that has been the sacrificial driving school basher. An off-leash greyhound got a hold of it at the skate park a day ago, now it has excellent teeth marks in the rear fender.

Losi SCTE ten shocks with the black springs = too stiff without a lot of experimenting. More work to do on that front.

The platinum stock shocks with decent preload and 60wt up front, 40wt in back rule our local skatebowl. Even in a skaters town like Santa Cruz, they all wanna see the slash doing hot laps and clearing the pyramids. What a frikkin blast.

After a couple of days happily driving with the GTR shocks running 60/40, I swapped in the set of Losi SCTE shocks running shock fluid 40R/50F. I'm digging the way it handles. Now I'll tweak sway bar stiffness to plant th front a little better. Testing tonight on a friends epic backyard pump track.

Yesterday (09/01/13) was my first day with my new-to-me Slash patterned Team-RCE at the NorCal Hobbies tracks in Union City, California. OMG it was awesome. For the indoor clay i broke out some M4 compound Proline Snipers for hook-up. Outdoors on the full size clay 1/10 course I mounted up a set of AKA Wishbones to Proline Beadlocks after finding the the stock Traxxas Platinum's soft Goodyears to be an ill-handling joke.

After aggressively stalking eBay this past month or so, I now have four RCE chassis in varying states. Three are rollers, one is RTR after investing some coin. One of the rollers is an absolute perfect condition shelf queen with full Proline proteck arms and matching offest wheels. It also has AE SC10 shocks all around, bolted to the RCE Magnesium towers, STRC steering hardware, Traxxas Ultimate carriers and knuckles, Lunsford pins, all driven by HD MIPs and a Robinson Racing center. The other two are well raced but still very serviceable with each running D8 front shocks on all four corners. One of these has a steel Robinson spur mounted to acenter diff, the othe is stock Traxxas on a center diff. One of these also has another set of MIPs, both have Ulitmate aluminum knuckles and carriers. These two cars came with six various sets of almost brand new clay indoor rubber, one full set of Road Rages, and some bash ready stock Goodyears and Kumhos. Plus half the tires were mounted on great condition Proline beadlocks.

Yesterday's RCE is built bullet proof as possible, atop a lightly used by 9/10's condition RCE chassis. It came with Proline shocks that I swappped out with a set of Losi SCTE team shocks. It also came with Traxxas CVD axles that needed a light cleaning and rubber rebuild, done. I replaced the RPM towers, arms and carriers/knuckles with new Hot-Racing product. I replaced the stock Traxxas steering linkage with Hot-Racing's hardware and set-up a Lunsford Ti Ball/Cup servo connector (1.87" c-c). Driveline is a Tekin Pro 4 4600/RX8 combo pushing a 17 tooth Novak mod .8 pinion and a Robinson steel 53 spur. This is set up for high bite so the diffs and shocks are pretty stiff. I'm running a sweet Savox 1258TG servo, controlled by a sanwa RX471 receiver with a Novak cap just in case. The radio is an uber precise Airtronics/Sanwa M12.

I feel like I'm all in at this point. I got my Slash Platinum for Father's Day this year. Now I've enough spares and rollers to build an RCE soft bite loose terrain truck, a RCE basher, and perhaps a conversion of the shelf queen RCE roller into a GT8. And there's still my RCE RTR that was tracked yesterday. And of course the original Slash I got back in June.

I turned one of the RCE chassis into a moto 3S powered by a Tekin RX8 Gen 2 and Tekin Pro4 HD 3000kv. Proline Badlands provide the knobby grip and plenty of tire height and clearance. I'm also running the max droop with D8 shocks. Its all about the clearance. The body is a Proline Baja full fender version and it looks very scale. I've got a ghetto track in a field next to our house that its getting a nice groove and line cut in. A little rain would help on that front.

Another RCE project? I'm setting up a third chassis as a GT road car. Just scored a Porsche 930 1:8 scale body from deltaplastik and am experimenting with fitting before shooting color.

Now I realize its time to update this thread with some real photos. Words only go so far. Next week...

I realized that I've taken a bunch of images along the Slash path, but haven't propagated them on this forum. Mostly Instagram and FB...

Anyway, starting today, I'm changing that.

Here's a couple of shots of my first body atop my platinum, all spanking new and unscathed.

Then there were some crashes. Including this epic chassis/bulkhead/a-arm/centershaft buster. 3S doofus move into a parked car at speed. It got me thinking I needed to beef my truck up. And learn to drive.

Along the way, I had some business travel, including a "too-long" trip down to San Diego for Comic-Con. I added some sanity to that trek by hauling my Slash kit and support tools down to the epic San Diego RC Raceway. I took a race clinic course and spent a great morning driving and working on my track chops. The truck did great, although the steering was still stock plastic and was tough to lock down trim for. All who wander may not be lost, but my joy for the stock steering was very lost indeed. An upgrade to STRC was to be the next step.

At SDRC they set me up four M4 Ions on some basic wheels to after the course. What a difference they made, especially right after they watered the track. Pretty cool.

In San Diego, I picked up another body to paint, this time JConcepts shell. Again with the stripes. Posed here in our lovely Jose Avenue Skate Bowl.

I think this is my fave color combo. And this was when I started getting close to tiring over needing to tighten screws into Slash plastic after every run, imprecise steering, flexy shock towers, hollow sounding landing thuds post tabletop jump...

Following lots of research here and at rcshortcourse, I settled into the idea of getting a TRCE carbon/magnesium chassis upgrade for my Slash. I was sitting on a ton of spares, wheels and tires, and knew the car, knew the tuning and wanted to stay on the Slash 4X4 path. I found my first TRCE roller on eBay and boom. I was done for.

OMG I love their watering system! I should ask my parents if they can give me a ride down there soon...

Sean, I got down there on a Saturday morning just as they opened, took the hour long driving class, then had a blast on the track. Unfortunately I had to leave by noon to make it back to Comicon for press meetings. Fell in love with racing and track driving. I wish it weren't 75 minutes (Union City) to my closest track up here in Santa Cruz.